that's because the debt already reached a ceiling of $16.4 trillion set by law. the bill is putting pressure on both chambers of commerce by mid-april. republicans are expected to continue pushing the government to cut the fiscal deficit by reviewing social security spending. the budget is a lingering concern for lawmakers. they must come up with measures to resolve the issues of spending cuts by early march. here in japan the jobless rate in december has gotten worse. the number of jobs on offer for people seeking work has seen the first increase in five months. the latest data from the internal affairs ministry shows unemployment for december was 4.2%. that's up .1 of a point from december. the number of people without a job increased by 70,000 to 27.8 million. those with a job fell 350,000 to 62.6 million. as for the whole of 2012 the job situation improved. the average unemployment rate last year stood at 4.3%. that's down .3 of a point from the previous year. the labor ministry announced that the ratio of job vacancies to seekers improved slightly in decembe